Encyclopedia Virginia: Health and Medicinehttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/img/EV_Logo_sm.gifEncyclopedia VirginiaThis is the url
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org
The first and ultimate online reference work about the Commonwealth/Anatomical_TheatreThu, 19 Jul 2018 14:18:02 ESTAnatomical Theatrehttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Anatomical_Theatre
The Anatomical Theatre was designed by Thomas
Jefferson and erected on
the grounds of the University of
Virginia in 1825–1826. It was used for anatomy instruction and the storage
of cadavers. Jefferson had
long prioritized medical education in his plans for the university, but when Robley Dunglison, the first
professor of anatomy, arrived in 1825, he found that his pavilion's teaching space
was inconvenient for the dissection of cadavers. Inspired by Renaissance architecture
and the work of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Jefferson designed a square, three-story
building that housed a skylit, octagonal surgical theater on the top floor. The
Anatomical Theatre opened for classes in 1827 and was the subject of periodic
construction and renovations in subsequent decades. In 1837, a one-story brick
Anatomical Laboratory was built behind it and used only for dissections. Enslaved labor helped construct and
later clean the theater, with university records referencing a man known as
Anatomical Lewis, who served as custodian from 1839 to 1857. In order to acquire
cadavers for dissection, professors such as John Staige Davis, who taught from 1847 until his
death in 1885, relied on grave robbers who stole mostly African American corpses. The
building fell into disuse after the opening of the University of Virginia Hospital in
1901 and briefly served as home to the School of Rural Economics. It was razed in
1939 to improve views of the new Alderman Library. It is the only Jefferson-designed
building at the university to have been torn down.Thu, 19 Jul 2018 14:18:02 EST]]>/Harris_Joseph_D_c_1833-1884Thu, 12 Jul 2018 17:45:23 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Harris_Joseph_D_c_1833-1884
J. D. Harris, a free-born physician, ran
as the lieutenant gubernatorial candidate for the Republican Party's radical faction in the election
of 1869. Harris entered public life late in the 1850s, advocating African American
repatriation to the Caribbean. His interest in tropical diseases led him into medicine, and
he became a doctor in 1864. Harris's medical work for the U.S. Army settled him in
Virginia. Politically active and known for his intelligence, he received the
Republicans' nomination for lieutenant governor in the first statewide election under
the Constitution of
1869. His multiracial background played a role in splitting the party that
year. A breakaway group known as the True Republicans received the tacit support of
the Conservative Party and
carried the election. Harris remained active in medicine and civil rights, living in South
Carolina and Virginia, until a mental breakdown in 1876. He died in Washington, D.C.,
in 1884. Thu, 12 Jul 2018 17:45:23 EST]]>/Barnes_Thomas_H_1831-1913Tue, 08 May 2018 17:18:36 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Barnes_Thomas_H_1831-1913
Thomas H. Barnes was a physician
and a member of the House of Delegates (1874–1877), the Senate of Virginia
(1887–1894), and the Convention of 1901–1902. Born in Nansemond County, he was educated at the University of Virginia and the Medical
College of Virginia. He practiced medicine, never married, and did not serve in the
military during the American Civil
War (1861–1865). After the war, Barnes became active in Democratic Party politics,
serving in the General Assembly and in the state constitutional convention. He died
in 1913.Tue, 08 May 2018 17:18:36 EST]]>/Davis_John_Staige_1824-1885Mon, 13 Nov 2017 15:59:10 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Davis_John_Staige_1824-1885
John Staige Davis was a professor
of medicine at the University of Virginia
from 1847 until 1885. Born in Albemarle County, he was the son of John A. G. Davis, a law professor at the university
who was shot and killed by a student there in 1840. The younger Davis practiced
medicine in western Virginia before joining the faculty himself in 1847. Preferring a
practical approach to anatomy instruction, and thwarted by a Virginia law that
prohibited the disinterment of dead bodies, he resorted to grave robbing. Most of the
bodies came from African American and pauper cemeteries, others from executed
convicts. In 1859, Davis requested the bodies of men sentenced to be hanged after
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry but received
none. During the American Civil War
(1861–1865), Davis served as a Confederate surgeon in Charlottesville. He died in 1885.Mon, 13 Nov 2017 15:59:10 EST]]>/Beazley_Roy_C_1902-1985Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:43:58 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Beazley_Roy_C_1902-1985
Roy C. Beazley directed nursing
education in various positions at the University of Virginia from 1946 until 1969,
and was the first woman at the university to be named professor emerita. Born in Orange County and named for her
uncle, Beazley began her career as a teacher but after suffering a serious illness
she became interested in nursing. She attended the hospital nursing school at the
University of Virginia and, with the
exception of a degree earned at Columbia University in 1953, remained in Charlottesville for the rest of her
career. She directed the evolution of the nursing education program into the School
of Nursing and served as president of the Virginia State Board of Examiners of Nurses
from 1959 to 1961. She retired from teaching in 1969 and died in 1985. Later that
year she was posthumously awarded the University of Virginia's Distinguished Nursing
Alumnae Award. Fri, 01 Jul 2016 16:43:58 EST]]>/Medicine_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_WarWed, 27 Apr 2016 17:14:33 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Medicine_in_Virginia_During_the_Civil_War
The medicine practiced in
Virginia by the Union and Confederate armies during the American Civil War (1861–1865) was state of the art for
its day and an important factor in the ability of both governments to raise and
maintain armies in the field. More than twice as many soldiers died of disease than from
combat-related injuries. Still, despite many nineteenth-century misconceptions about
the causes and treatments of disease, three out of four soldiers survived their
illnesses. This was due in part to widespread vaccination for smallpox, isolation of
most contagious diseases, and especially the recognition of the importance of
cleanliness and sanitation. As the war dragged on, combat injuries became more
prevalent and the work of surgeons became more important. Surgery, though unsterile,
saved lives through amputation. Such procedures were done, for the most part, with
adequate pain control and some form of anesthesia. To care for the wounded, both
sides established a system of hospitals, ranging from makeshift field hospitals and
interim "corps hospitals" (used by Confederates), to large, fixed general hospitals
such as the sprawling Chimborazo
Hospital in Richmond. It
was often painful and dangerous for the wounded to be transported from the
battlefield to the hospital, but in the end the quality of medical care they received
was generally high and led to important medical advances during the postwar period
and twentieth century.Wed, 27 Apr 2016 17:14:33 EST]]>/Dunglison_Robley_1798-1869Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:30:09 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dunglison_Robley_1798-1869
Robley Dunglison was a medical
educator and an author who was among the first faculty members of the University of Virginia. Born in England, he
studied medicine in London, Edinburgh, Paris, and Germany, but found himself bored
with general practice. In 1824 he accepted an offer to teach at the newly founded University of
Virginia, becoming the first professional full-time professor of medicine in
the United States. (Most professors also practiced medicine, but Dunglison's contract
prohibited it.) He also served as Thomas Jefferson's consulting physician and attended the former president's death
at Monticello in 1826. While in
Charlottesville, Dunglison
published his landmark work, Human Physiology (1832), and a
medical dictionary. He taught at Virginia for nine years before accepting a position
at the University of Maryland and then, three years after that, at Jefferson Medical
College, in Philadelphia, where he stayed for the rest of his career. Dunglison died
in 1853.Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:30:09 EST]]>/Cabell_J_L_1813-1889Thu, 04 Feb 2016 15:27:10 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Cabell_J_L_1813-1889
J. L. Cabell was a medical
educator and public health advocate. Likely born in Nelson County, he attended the University of Virginia and received his
medical degree from the University of Maryland in Baltimore. In 1837, he became a
professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Virginia, teaching for more
than fifty years, until 1889. In 1859, Cabell published a treatise arguing that all
people, even those of supposedly inferior races, descended from a single creation.
During the American Civil War
(1861–1865), Cabell served as the surgeon in charge of the Confederate military hospitals in Charlottesville and Danville. After the war, he helped
to found the Medical Society of Virginia and served as its president from 1876 to
1877. He was the first president of the Virginia State Board of Health, and in 1879
became president of the new National Board of Health. Cabell died in 1889. Thu, 04 Feb 2016 15:27:10 EST]]>/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_WarThu, 19 Nov 2015 10:20:34 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Charlottesville_During_the_Civil_War
Charlottesville provided the Confederate war effort with swords, uniforms,
and artificial limbs during the American
Civil War (1861–1865). It was also home to a 500-bed military hospital that
employed hundreds of the town's residents, cared for more than 22,000 patients, and
was superintended by Dr. J. L.
Cabell, a professor of medicine at the nearby University
of Virginia. In the summer of 1861, the 19th Virginia Infantry Regiment was
organized, recruiting most of its members from Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The unit served with the Army of Northern Virginia
all the way through to the Appomattox Campaign (1865), including at Pickett's Charge (1863), where it lost 60 percent
of its men. African Americans, both enslaved and free, who
composed a majority of the town and county's population, were the subject of
heightened white fears of violence, their movements controlled by a curfew. In 1863,
black members of the biracial First Baptist Church established the Charlottesville
African Church. Although the war's fighting stayed mostly to the east and west, a
raid led by Union general George A. Custer was stopped just north of the city in the
spring of 1864. Early the next year, town leaders surrendered Charlottesville to
Custer, preventing the community's destruction.Thu, 19 Nov 2015 10:20:34 EST]]>/DeJarnette_Joseph_Spencer_1866-1957Mon, 02 Nov 2015 10:01:06 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/DeJarnette_Joseph_Spencer_1866-1957
Joseph S. DeJarnette was a
physician and eugenicist who performed hundreds of involuntary sterilizations at
Western State Hospital in Staunton.
DeJarnette's early career fit the reform ethos of the Progressive period and he modernized treatment
of patients as superintendent of the hospital. He also began to advocate for forced
sterilizations, which he believed would improve society. DeJarnette testified in the
landmark case Buck v.
Bell (1927), in which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Virginia's
sterilization statute. He took pride in the state's aggressive approach to
sterilization, but felt the state was not acting fast enough and publicly admired
Nazi Germany's more ambitious plan. DeJarnette defended sterilization and racial
segregation until his death in 1957. In 2001 the General Assembly denounced and expressed regret
over Virginia's eugenics program. Mon, 02 Nov 2015 10:01:06 EST]]>/Bell_John_Hendren_1883-1934Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:29:12 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bell_John_Hendren_1883-1934
John H. Bell was a
prominent eugenicist and physician in Virginia. A member of the American Medical
Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Virginia
Academy of Science, and the Medical Society of Virginia, Bell advocated the forced
sterilization of people believed to be incompetent. Appointed superintendent of the
State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, in Lynchburg, Bell became a principal in the lawsuit
arranged by the former superintendent to test Virginia's 1924 legislation allowing
for forced sterilization. Carrie
Elizabeth Buck, a patient at the colony, had been selected for the test
case. In its landmark ruling in
Buck v. Bell, the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld the constitutionality of Virginia's law. Bell performed the operation on
Buck himself. Bell continued to produce pamphlets defending eugenics until his death. Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:29:12 EST]]>/An_ACT_to_define_feeble-mindedness_1916Wed, 20 May 2015 10:51:15 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/An_ACT_to_define_feeble-mindedness_1916
Wed, 20 May 2015 10:51:15 EST]]>/Jones_Sarah_Garland_Boyd_1866-1905Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:14:32 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Jones_Sarah_Garland_Boyd_1866-1905
Sarah Garland Boyd Jones became the first African American woman to pass the Virginia Medical Examining Board's examination. Jones
grew up among Richmond's black
elite and became a teacher upon graduating from Richmond Colored Normal School. She
entered Howard University's medical school in 1890 and earned her medical degree
three years later. Jones established a successful practice in Richmond. She and her
physician husband helped create a medical association for Virginia's African
American doctors, and the pair opened their own small hospital. In 1922, the Sarah G.
Jones Memorial Hospital, Medical College and Training School for Nurses (later
Richmond Community Hospital) was named in her honor. Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:14:32 EST]]>/Valentine_Lila_Meade_1865-1921Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:45:16 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Valentine_Lila_Meade_1865-1921
Lila Meade Valentine was a suffragist,
education reformer, and public-health advocate. During her abbreviated life, she
played a vital role in creating and running organizations that improved the
health-care and public school systems of her native city of Richmond. Valentine also became an ardent supporter of
woman suffrage early in the
1900s, cofounding the Equal
Suffrage League of Virginia and serving as an active member of the National
American Woman Suffrage Association. A talented organizer and an eloquent speaker,
Valentine led efforts on behalf of suffrage that came to fruition in 1920, when the
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, giving women the
right to vote.Mon, 15 Sep 2014 12:45:16 EST]]>/Hygiene_During_the_Pre-Colonial_Era_PersonalFri, 30 May 2014 13:56:25 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Hygiene_During_the_Pre-Colonial_Era_Personal
Early Virginia Indians practiced personal hygiene that included daily
baths in all seasons and all weather. They also engaged in occasional sweat baths in
sweat lodges, which likely were presided over by a priest and which they believed to be healthy and
invigorating. Despite a lack of soap, elite Powhatan Indians washed their hands before eating,
according to Jamestown
colonists and other European observers, whose writings don't comment on the practices
of common people. At least one late seventeenth century European traveler remarked on
Virginia Indians who never washed their clothes, a practice that probably originated when they dressed in tough
deerskin but which became less seemly after switching to European-style garb.
Regardless, by modern standards, Virginia Indians were far more sanitary than the
Europeans who arrived in 1607. Fri, 30 May 2014 13:56:25 EST]]>/Diet_in_Early_Virginia_Indian_SocietyFri, 30 May 2014 13:13:25 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Diet_in_Early_Virginia_Indian_Society
Diet in early Virginia Indian society changed significantly from the Ice Age to the English colonists' landing at
Jamestown in 1607, from
initially relying more on meat to over time increasingly combining wild game, fish, nuts, and berries. The Indians' eating
patterns were shaped by the seasons, and for the Powhatans there were five, not four.
In the early and mid-spring (cattapeuk), they ate migrating
fish and planted crops. From late
in the spring until mid-summer (cohattayough), they split
their time between the towns, where they weeded the fields, and the forests, where they foraged. Late summer (nepinough) was harvest time, and the autumn and early winter
(taquitock) the occasion for feasts and religious rituals. This marked a second time in the year when the Indians
abandoned their towns, this time for communal hunts. Meats were prepared and stored for
the late winter and early spring (popanow), when shortages
made life difficult and even dangerous. "They be all of them huge eaters," the
colonist William Strachey
observed of the Powhatans, but the Indians also lived intensely physical lives,
requiring a large number of calories. Their metabolisms, meanwhile, were slow enough
to store nutrients and then, during shortages, use them slowly while the people
remained active. The colonist John
Smith described the Powhatans as living "hand to mouth," but they were often
better fed than the colonists with a diet that was low in fat, sugar, and salt, and
high in protein and fiber. Fri, 30 May 2014 13:13:25 EST]]>/KeponeFri, 16 May 2014 11:19:19 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Kepone
Kepone, also known as chlordecone, is a toxic, nonbiodegradable
insecticide that a chemical plant in Hopewell, Virginia dumped into the James River from 1966 until 1975. The chemical's negative effect on the
environment was documented and eventually publicized, leading authorities to shut down the Allied Chemical Corporation plant that
produced Kepone and to order fishing bans and advisories. The environmental and medical scandal was one of the first of its kind
to play out nationally, and while it eventually led to the destruction of the Virginia fishing industry, it also led to improved
environmental awareness.Fri, 16 May 2014 11:19:19 EST]]>/Letter_from_George_Mallory_to_A_S_Priddy_November_5_1917Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:42:09 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Letter_from_George_Mallory_to_A_S_Priddy_November_5_1917
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:42:09 EST]]>/Chapter_46B_of_the_Code_of_Virginia_Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:37:48 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chapter_46B_of_the_Code_of_Virginia_
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 16:37:48 EST]]>/Notice_of_Appeal_October_3_1924Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:51:24 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Notice_of_Appeal_October_3_1924
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:51:24 EST]]>/Petition_to_Commit_Carrie_Buck_January_23_1924Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:48:29 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Petition_to_Commit_Carrie_Buck_January_23_1924
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:48:29 EST]]>/Carrie_Buck_Committed_January_23_1924Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:19:50 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Carrie_Buck_Committed_January_23_1924
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:19:50 EST]]>/Petition_to_Sterilize_Carrie_Buck_September_10_1924Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:15:28 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Petition_to_Sterilize_Carrie_Buck_September_10_1924
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:15:28 EST]]>/Carrie_Buck_Adjudged_Feeble-minded_or_Epileptic_January_23_1924Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:11:58 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Carrie_Buck_Adjudged_Feeble-minded_or_Epileptic_January_23_1924
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:11:58 EST]]>/Judgment_Against_Carrie_Buck_April_13_1925Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:08:44 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Judgment_Against_Carrie_Buck_April_13_1925
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 11:08:44 EST]]>/Dinwiddie_Emily_Wayland_1879-1949Wed, 02 Apr 2014 17:01:14 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Dinwiddie_Emily_Wayland_1879-1949
Emily Wayland Dinwiddie was a social worker and reformer. Born in Virginia, she
helped to professionalize and systematize social work. She drew on her experience as
a tenement inspector in New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh to write handbooks,
manuals, and forms. In her reports Dinwiddie placed an emphasis on maintaining high
standards of public health and sanitation in city tenements. In 1918 she joined the
American Red Cross in France, and continued to work for the organization until 1922.
Five years later Dinwiddie became director of the Children's Bureau at the Virginia
State Board of Public Welfare. She also took a leave of absence to write Virginia State Hospitals for Mental Patients (1934), a
comprehensive report of the state's public mental hospitals. Dinwiddie moved to
Kansas in 1934 to work for the Emergency Relief Administration. She retired from
public service in 1938 and died in Virginia in 1949. Wed, 02 Apr 2014 17:01:14 EST]]>/Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918Thu, 09 Jan 2014 15:23:53 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Boland_Robert_J_1850-1918
Robert J. Boland was a physician
and African American
leader in Roanoke. The Georgia-born
Boland earned his medical degree in Michigan. He arrived in Virginia in 1886,
possibly becoming the first black doctor to complete the
new Virginia Board of Medical Examiners test. Five years later he settled in growing
Roanoke, headquarters of the Norfolk and Western Railway, where he became a
substantial property owner and a newspaper editor. Boland died in Roanoke
in 1918. Thu, 09 Jan 2014 15:23:53 EST]]>/Christian_William_S_1830-1910Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:59:43 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Christian_William_S_1830-1910
William S. Christian was a Confederate army officer, a temperance
organization leader, and a doctor who worked in Middlesex County. In 1859 Christian raised a
cavalry company known as the Middlesex Light Dragoons, which became Company C of the
55th Virginia Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Christian was wounded twice during the war:
first at the Battle of
Glendale (1862) and then again at the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863).
Christian participated in the Army of Northern Virginia's advance into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863
and was captured by Union forces after the Gettysburg campaign (1863). He was imprisoned
for less than a year at Johnson's Island in Ohio, where he composed a long poem
entitled "The Past." After the war Christian returned to Urbanna to practice
medicine. From 1876 to 1881 he served as state head of the Independent Order of Good
Templars, an international temperance league. In 1880 he set up a segregated Dual
Grand Lodge in Richmond,
accommodating members who believed African Americans should be admitted to the
society while pacifying white southerners who resisted that notion. Christian was
also a member of the Medical Society of Virginia and Middlesex County's board of
health and, from 1890 to 1909, the superintendent of Middlesex County's public
schools. He died on December 10, 1910.Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:59:43 EST]]>/Chaloner_John_Armstrong_1862-1935Wed, 21 Aug 2013 13:52:04 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chaloner_John_Armstrong_1862-1935
John Armstrong Chaloner was a celebrity and writer known for coining
the catchphrase "Who's looney now?" after his personal trials with psychiatric
experimentation and treatment. When his wealthy family learned that he believed he
possessed a new sense, which he called the "X-Faculty," they had him committed to a
psychiatric hospital in New York in 1897; a court later declared him insane and ruled
he be permanently institutionalized. He escaped the institution and was
ultimately deemed sane more than twenty years later. In the meantime, he published
about two dozen books on his experiments with psychotherapy and his stay in the
insane asylum. His books, such as The Lunacy Law of the World
(1906), often attacked the rising power of psychiatric medicine, and his case was
controversial particularly among the nation's leading psychologists, who disagreed
about whether he was rational or paranoid. He married and divorced the novelist Amélie Rives, but lived near her
Albemarle County home for
much of his life. Wed, 21 Aug 2013 13:52:04 EST]]>/Blaikley_Catherine_Kaidyee_ca_1695-ca_1771Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:39:10 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Blaikley_Catherine_Kaidyee_ca_1695-ca_1771
Catherine Kaidyee Blaikley was a midwife who, during the mid-eighteenth century in Virginia, purportedly delivered as many as
three thousand babies. Probably born in York County, Blaikley married a watchmaker who, when
he died in 1736, left her a substantial estate, including land in Henrico County, a mill in
Brunswick County, and a lot in Williamsburg. Catherine Blaikley maintained her relatively high standard of living by becoming a midwife in Williamsburg in 1739. By
the time of her death in 1771, male midwives also were delivering babies, a process that led to male physicians gradually replacing female
midwives.Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:39:10 EST]]>/Bohun_Lawrence_d_1621Tue, 16 Jul 2013 11:56:40 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Bohun_Lawrence_d_1621
Lawrence Bohun was a member of
the govenror's Council and physician general of the Virginia colony. Born probably in England,
Bohun may have received his medical training at Leiden. He sailed to Virginia in 1610
as personal physician to the governor. Bohun returned to England and in 1612 was named as a shareholder
in the third charter of the
Virginia Company of
London. While practicing medicine in London, he retained his interest in
Virginia and may have been involved in an attempt to introduce silk culture there.
Appointed physician general of the colony and a member of the Council in 1620, Bohun
sailed for Virginia but was killed on March 19, 1621, when Spanish warships attacked
his ship in the West Indies.Tue, 16 Jul 2013 11:56:40 EST]]>/House_Joint_Resolution_No_607_2001Tue, 09 Jul 2013 17:20:07 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/House_Joint_Resolution_No_607_2001
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 17:20:07 EST]]>/Ambler_James_M_1848-1881Mon, 08 Jul 2013 10:22:24 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Ambler_James_M_1848-1881
James M. Ambler was a Confederate cavalryman during the American Civil War (1861–1865) and,
after the war, a United States Navy surgeon. Ambler graduated from medical school in
Baltimore, Maryland, in 1870 and joined the Navy, serving on various ships and at the
Norfolk Naval Hospital. In 1878, he reluctantly volunteered for service with an
Arctic expedition aboard the Jeannette, a ship commanded by
George W. De Long. The ship became imprisoned by ice late in 1879, and Ambler did
well to keep the crew not only alive but relatively healthy. Still adrift in June
1881, the Jeannette struck ice, which crushed its wooden hull.
While a few of the crew's thirty-three men survived, many froze to death, drowned, or
starved, including Ambler, who died with De Long sometime around October 30,
1881.Mon, 08 Jul 2013 10:22:24 EST]]>/_Mendel_s_Law_A_Plea_for_a_Better_Race_of_MenMon, 10 Jun 2013 08:53:55 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Mendel_s_Law_A_Plea_for_a_Better_Race_of_Men
Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:53:55 EST]]>/_Mr_Jefferson_s_Personal_Appearance_and_Habits_an_excerpt_from_The_Private_Life_of_Thomas_Jefferson_by_Hamilton_W_Pierson_1862Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:55:20 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/_Mr_Jefferson_s_Personal_Appearance_and_Habits_an_excerpt_from_The_Private_Life_of_Thomas_Jefferson_by_Hamilton_W_Pierson_1862
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:55:20 EST]]>/Civil_War_PensionsThu, 13 Sep 2012 15:10:16 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Civil_War_Pensions
In the immediate postwar years, Virginia tried to provide aid to its
soldiers who had
suffered significant disabilities during the American Civil War (1861–1865), especially those who had
lost limbs. Over time the state shifted its artificial-limbs program to a commutation
payment. By 1888 the state had begun to create a pension system that would allot
annual payments not only to severely disabled veterans, but also to widows—women whose husbands had died during the conflict. Over
the next three decades the state legislature liberalized the requirement for this
program to the point that it became an old age pension system for Confederate
veterans. Relative to the federal pension program and the other former Confederate
states that gave pensions, the amount of Virginia's pensions was much smaller.Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:10:16 EST]]>/Chimborazo_HospitalTue, 01 Mar 2011 11:33:52 ESThttp://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Chimborazo_Hospital
Chimborazo Hospital, located
in the Confederate capital of Richmond, was the largest and most famous medical facility in the South during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The
hospital admitted nearly 78,000 patients suffering from battlefield wounds and
diseases. Of this number, approximately 6,500 to 8,000 died, resulting in a mortality
rate of about 9 percent. Few hospitals in the Confederacy had lower mortality rates,
and those that did generally received patients who were further along in their
recovery. The best-staffed and equipped Union hospitals, in comparison, achieved a
10 percent mortality rate. With no model to draw on, Chimborazo Hospital's success
can be attributed to a combination of its open-air, pavilion-style design; the
comparatively good quality of care; innovative practices; and the supreme dedication
of the caregivers—men and women,
black and white, slave and
free. Their efforts
contributed to one of the great advancements in mid-nineteenth-century medicine: the
acceptance of hospital care for the sick and injured, which was a concept not
embraced in America prior to 1865.Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:33:52 EST]]>